The world of Avatar took years to fully imagine for director James Cameron. Pandora is a rich, vibrant land, with its own eco-structure, cultural countries and politics, and it’ll continue to be as the blockbuster craftsman plans three new movies set in the same universe.

An Artist's Impression of the Planned 'Avatar World'

But, as pictures released today show on the Disney blog, Pandora is slowly but surely turning into something altogether more tangible. Avatar Land – after significant delays – is on the way. “From the moment AVATAR was released, people were captivated by the mythical world of Pandora,” said Tom Staggs, Chairman, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

“When we announced that we’d be working with James Cameron and Lightstorm Entertainment to bring this world to life in our parks, we felt certain that this partnership and combination of talent and imagination would produce an experience unlike any other ever created.”

James Cameron's Avatar world is evolving

If engineering the 3-D – yet on-screen – version of Pandora was difficult and time consuming, then Disney’s mammoth project of building a Pandora theme park can be forgiven for incurring delays, even if Avatar Land was supposed to open its gates in 2015.

Disney are operating – like they are with Star Wars – with the explicit knowledge that their brand has a huge fan base. Avatar quickly moved towards the $2b mark at the box office, totalling at $2.7b and landing the ‘highest grossing movie of all time’ mantle, ahead of Titanic and Marvel’s The Avengers.

And on top of that, Cameron is planning on three new films to accompany the Avatar franchise, meaning the top five will – conceivably – be made up of four Avatar films.